August 4, 2004

I was planning to go to to our nations capital this weekend to see a friend of mine perform in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was the Art Director and he was also a transylvanian chorus member. I was to attend the last showing of it this Saturday and then we were gonna have a good ol' time in the political center of our country. There was a lurking doom present in the planning stages. My car was starting to show me it didn't feel very well. It's been through alot, and I've gotten way more out of it than I ever though possible, so really these last couple years have all been just a bonus.

Anyway, as of late, I am the only one in my house that has a car. This means that my car is the way both my roommates (and myself) get a ride to and from work. My brother works 4 to midnight at the taxi company, and my other roommate works midnight to 8 am at the same place, so my roommate drives to work at midnight, and my brother drives it back home and everyone's happy... until today that is. My brother was having a bit of a struggle getting it into gear to leave work, but it finally popped into gear rather abruptly and reluctantly.

Problem solved, as long as you don't want to go past 30 mph, that is. After that, it got rather touchy. You can make it move, but not unless she has to! He made it home with a little scare. You know, the one you get when you push the gas pedal and it just doesn't go. I'm glad he made it home ok! I'm also glad that the tranny went out before I was a million miles away. I think I'll take the "this was a good thing" approach to this one.

I have all kinds resolutions in my Palm, although, most of them don't
have a definitive
goal. Essentially, things like "don't put
things off until later" and "take responsibility". I've always
been a goal oriented, list-making kind of guy. Although, what
I've learned about myself is that I tend to make the list and then
forget about the items on it. Afterall, taking the time to
accomplish the tasks on a list only takes away from time that could be
devoted to making new lists.

It is August now, and I weigh 186 pounds. It may not be in my
best interest to lose any more weight, since I
arbitrarily picked a number
that a chart said was good for my
height.
I'll chat with my doctor to see what she thinks, but I have always been
a larger framed person and suspect that I am probably at a good
weight. I started by reading the entire contents of The
Hacker's Diet online,
downloading the Excel spreadsheets and picking an arbitrary caloric
value that was 500 less than an estimate of what I would need to eat
per day to maintain that weight. (It ended up being closer to
1600 calories less than what I needed, according to my charts; it is
easy to not notice how much you are really eating when you aren't
paying attention.)

Reading the Hacker's Diet gave me the knowledge I needed, and also
provided the Excel sheets for tracking calories and charting
weights. But, the mystery is, where did my devotion come
from? Really, I cannot be certain. I think it may have been
that I was officiallyobese for too long and was simply tired of
it. Once I intellectually understood exactly how to lose
weight, and knowing that all I had to do was keep track of what I was
eating to do it, it became less of an effort and almost automatic.

For a long time, I was under the impression that people couldn't
change, not really. Sure, they could start something, and maybe
be with it
for awhile, but they would eventually end up back where they
started.
Now, I know that is not exactly true. Instead, I now believe that
change can be very difficult, takes time, and requires a good
reason. If you aren't convinced by your reason, save yourself
some time and give up now.